


In Essence

by abbichicken (orphan_account)



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Hair-pulling, I'll see what I want to see..., Introspection, Masturbation, Other, Power Dynamics, Scratching, Self-Harm, if it fits your kink, laughable velour situation, sexualised self-mutilation, there's a healing pond ffs this is everything I ever wanted in a fandom, unhealthy furniture involvement, warnings make this sound more interesting than it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 04:03:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3473732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/abbichicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balem's methods of self-indulgence are...specific.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Essence

**Author's Note:**

> (and, spoilers, also in the tags). I used to write this kind of thing a lot. My thing was jamming this sort of nonsense into all the fandoms I loved. I haven't loved anything enough to write this kind of fic for a long, long time. So, it is with warm and excitable heart that I went right head-over-heels for this film last night, and, as such, I'm still working on being canon-right (to be fair, I think the film might still be working on that as well). This is my own self-indulgence - I really, really enjoyed writing it. I have a feeling there might be more to come. I over-, rather than under-tag, because it's sensitive stuff for some people, and if you don't blindly enjoy it as I do, well, you won't enjoy this. But if you do, then, hi, welcome, this is daft, but it's a start XD

 

_Time is nothing._

Naked from the nectar bath, Balem dismisses the proffered robe with a curt hand. It’s too similar to ones he has worn for far too long. It is time for something new. Something better. Something more.

He shifts in the seat, the velour of it no longer as soft as it once was, the springs that held it right already bowed and contoured under even his slight weight, decay, clear and constant, the itch of worn fibres against his thigh, the crunch of tired mechanics behind his back.

It is delicious.

It is the rot that bites.

And Balem enjoys being bitten.

It is the struggle that makes the man.

The view is imperfect. Endless strands of world and architecture, glory abounding. Mechanics and development, progress, progress, progress. It is, and is not everything; everything watches and waits with, around it, the possibility of more, shaped like temptation. Balem sits amongst it, never as comfortable as he might be; grateful, always, charged by this discontent.

Everything ought to be just a little more beautiful. A little more perfect. The inexorable bind between his siblings and his existence is exhausting; the permanence of it all, the way they _are_ and always will be, and unless _someone_ murders any one of them, the infinity of the Abrasax existence is the clearest truth there could be.

For some, that might be enough. Reaping the rewards of the genetic lottery for all time, preserving and delighting in the very finest of everything. The name, the pride, the perfection. For some that truth of evolution, of situation, of existence, would be everything; a thing to be kept ticking over whilst the bulk of one’s life is leisure.

Truth is of little use to Balem now. After so much time, it is the most basic of frameworks, the obvious, the bedrock of breath and blood and life. He takes a greater pleasure in what it is to be an Abrasax. The work that must be done to validate the name – to gather more, reap further, collect and grow and enhance to new levels. His mother had settled for too little, grown lazy, grown tired. With so much in her grasp, she failed to clutch adequately at it, tired, perhaps, of the graft.

His siblings have inherited this foolish side. There is much to be done, and they concern themselves with the most ridiculous of thoughts, petty struggles without consequence, without thought, without value. If they would only support him, if they would only lend their minds, surely containing some of the excellence inherent in the bloodline, they would advance at a much greater rate…or, at the very least, they would cease to impede this progress, the very heart of what it is to reign amidst the highest strata of the universe.

…but it was always too easy to be so distracted from these moments, too easy to busy oneself and forget that he too has delights to take.

In this moment, here, his body already betrays its newly-wrought perfection. The decay already irritates; a rash will form if he sits here much longer, naked on less-than-perfect fabric.

The control surrounds him. The possibility of the day, this round of time stretches out ahead of him. Everything is within his grasp. Everything can be bought, had, taken.

The greatest part of this leisurely existence, the bounty reaped from it all, is encapsulated in what comes next. A guilty pleasure? An Abrasax does not know guilt. But pleasure? It is the finest.

He stretches himself along the length of the seat, runs a hand along this clean, new, idealised self, available to him at any moment.

With lengthy, smooth motions, his fingers curling and extending repetitively, finely-rounded fingernails tacking and damaging themselves ever so slightly every time, Balem extracts the pin from the curve of the seat. Its long, sleek metal shines in the dull grey light of the room. With it emerge threads, undone and disturbed. With one hand, Balem shifts the pin to between third and fourth fingers, holding it neatly as he picks, picks, picks at the thread to undo a corner of the settee.

His breath quickens and his heart beats faster.

It is not long until his hand dives, pin twisted to point-out, for his opposite arm. It slashes and scrapes, not cuts, scrapes into his pale, fresh flesh, separating in places, dragging in others. It is a bold motion, and blood appears quickly along the line of it.

It makes him smile, a genuine, old smile, repeated many times through many years, fuelled by drive and serum and power. He licks a finger, swipes it through the gathering redness, and tastes pure excellence in it; shameless, small and wondering at the ability he has to reduce himself to component parts.

His nails scratch over the scratch, pin discarded, its work done. He widens and toys with the wound, taking layers of skin with that same calm and measured motion, which is now already causing reverberations through his body.

It is cold, and his skin prickles and quivers as the artificial air weighs upon him, and the electricity of what he’s doing excites him.

The seat is less practical, less comfortable as he twists to his side and feels himself harden in recognised preparation for what’s to come when his cock touches the displeasing fabric beneath him.

Everything could be better.

It is the reality of the work to be done to make it so that has him enjoy the depravity of this. In front of cities, his right hand strokes and pulls and aggravates his erection, the motion stimulating the bloodflow from the angered cut in his forearm, further encouraged by the ministrations of his left hand, which digs and tears into it, teasing and scratching and slipping in the tiny destruction of a handful of newly-renewed cells. Consumption and cost, pleasure and delight.

His eyes roll a little, his body jerks unevenly, and he is reduced to a baseness that is essential – the confluence of pain and possibility joining, his imagination stretching out into the galaxy, and snapping back every other moment to the perfect sensations he creates with his own bare hands.

He is not lonely. How could he be, amidst so much ambition, so much self?

The orgasm is weak, but it comes nonetheless, leaking, soiling, staining, smearing.

Balem reclines, breathes deep. He is broken again, and all the more complete for it. It can be erased at any time, this damage, this pain. He will bear it for a while, accumulate, perhaps, a new collection of personal damage, wounds as like the sallowness and age he permits to gather between bathing, deliberate, always deliberate, always controlled.

His arm throbs red, his pale thighs come together and he curls himself foetal and small, wet patches beneath him, muscles and skin contracting in shivers.

The excitement remains.

He runs blood and cum-streaked fingers through the damp slick of his hair. They catch in dirty friction and tangle, pulling a soreness that provides a further edge of delight. He selects a single hair with tantalising slowness, just one, and rolls it between the sticky pads of finger and thumb.

Outside, the infinite sky swirls, disinterested. Dust spins and settles and waves across the centre of his empire.

He twists the hair about his index finger and pulls it out. _There_. A pinprick that shivers down into the centre of his being, and gives his heart a moment to pause to savour the purity of its pleasure.

It regenerates too.

The restraint with which he singles out just one more hair, accepts the jolt of extracting it, is much.

He tries to drop the hair to the ground, but it sticks to his hand.

_Just one more…_

It is time to stop.

Sometimes it is harder to stop.

Sometimes the struggle, the pain, reverses, finding themselves within the cessation of the damage, rather than the damage itself.

It is then that Balem looks his greater fear in the eye. He cannot name it, cannot face it, not yet, but to see it, to see it, is, for now, enough.

There is always something more, just waiting.

Time is nothing. Everything is for him, in the end.

 


End file.
